Capital Markets Advisors

CMA Announces Volcker Rule Custom One Day In-House Seminars As its final effective date gets closer, it’s imperative that all members of your firm that are touched by the Volcker Rule, understand the implications of adherence as well as the various ways in which the day-to-day process is effected. Compliance to the Volcker Rule will impact trading, compliance, operations, middle office, regulatory, on-boarding, and surveillance staff at Banks, market-making, and… Read More »

Wednesday, February 19th, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER In my last article I reviewed the SEC’s final and proposed rules on transaction reporting by market participants. In this article I will look at the final rule on SDRs, and make some observations on the effectiveness of current and future reporting regimes. The SEC’s final SDR rule is entitled “Security-Based Swap Data Repository Registration, Duties, and Core Principles” and runs some 468… Read More »

Wednesday, February 16th, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER If you have read my previous articles on Tabb Forum, you will know that I believe the all-important swaps reporting requirement has been badly mishandled by the regulators worldwide, missing a golden opportunity to shed some light on this otherwise opaque market. In the US, one of the nagging problems has been that the SEC hadn’t put out its reporting rules, so there… Read More »

Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER   Recently I wrote about the debate in the US over risk management programs at CCPs, and how “skin in the game” was not a very comforting approach. A recent report by the European Commission on the use of CCPs by pension funds brings another aspect of this to light. First the report points out that, “Under EMIR, OTC derivatives that are standardised… Read More »

Friday, February 6th, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER Given all the debate and discussion on the evolution of the swaps markets, including some negative comments by one of the new CFTC Commissioners, one group we have been waiting to hear from on this subject is the futures industry, where exchange trading and clearing have been working successfully for decades. Granted, swaps aren’t futures, but the Futures Industry Association’s (FIA’s) input is… Read More »

Wednesday, February 4th, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER Last July marked the fourth anniversary of the passage and signing of the Dodd-Frank Act, so it is appropriate to reflect on the two sections of the DFA most of interest to OTC Space readers, Title VII on derivatives, and Section 619, the Volcker Rule. Title VII The first question we might ask about Title VII is whether swaps were really at the… Read More »